Opinion page editor Rick Holmes and other writers blog about national politics and issues. Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of policy, news and opinion. This blog is the online cousin of the Opinion
...

Opinion page editor Rick Holmes and other writers blog about national politics and issues. Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of policy, news and opinion. This blog is the online cousin of the Opinion section of the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Mass. As such, our focus starts there and spreads to include Massachusetts, the nation and the world. Since successful blogs create communities of readers and writers, we hope the \x34& Co.\x34 will also come to include you.

Last night at about midnight, in a somewhat half asleep state, I heard a Republican congressman on the radio talking about the fiscal cliff. He was joking about some reality show called Hoarders, or something like that, in which the “hosts” help someone get rid of clutter. The congressman launched into a spoof of the show, suggesting that the Pentagon ought to be featured. “Now, General, do you really need 25,000 thermonuclear warheads? “Do you really need enough armor to battle the Soviet Union to its knees six times over?” Do you really need 2000 warehouses full of World War II vintage uniforms?” “Do you really need to keep troops in 145 countries? What if we just move those troops over here, and see if things work out…” Even though I’ve never seen the show, the spoof of it was incredibly funny and poignant. According to this Congressman, the Republican majority in Congress are ready to slash the military budget dramatically, as it won’t affect military readiness and it won’t impact our ability to engage three wars at once. In fact, he says, we now have enough armament to fight about forty wars at once. He was also pointing out that the biggest obstruction to cutting the Pentagon budget is not the Republican Party, but Democrats, whose districts are chock full of factories grinding out ammo for guns that no longer exist, and military bases that have no reasonable purpose. The Fiscal Cliff,in terms of the military, is not a threat to Republican constituents, but rather to the unions who represent defense industry employees in heavily Democratic places in California. He went on to say that most Republicans, if they had a choice, would go for deeper cuts in military spending than would happen in the fiscal cliff scenario, which is why Republicans agreed to the deal in the first place. Seems like the Republicans don’t fear the cliff half as much as the Democrats, who have been making erroneous promises that entitlement spending is not on the table. Please, cut the Pentagon budget by half along with everything. Barring that, over the cliff!